An Earthling Earth Pony at Celestia's School of Magic: Year One

Classes resumed the next day, and business as usual. There was no discussion of Psychic Calm’s death, and all the professors, including Headmaster, were present and accounted for. None of them were taking any additional leave, although breakfast had a subdued atmosphere where there was far less chatter than usual.

Professor Newman mercilessly sprang that verbal pop quiz on us, which we had been expecting the other day before class was canceled. I got my answers right, but it was clear that the extra two days had dulled the memories of some of our other classmates. Bright and I hadn’t studied together that morning, and he seemed at a loss when asked his question. His embarrassment was only partially mitigated when Newman called upon Lunar Light next, only to find him sleeping at his desk. That earned Lunar detention. I guess we would know where Lunar would be at least once this week, excluding class.

Her class continued, with her discussing a particular magical technique. However, Twilight Glow seemed to have an issue with the details of the lesson.

“Professor, that makes no sense! Shouldn’t the fire rune be placed in the jointed position? That would reduce the tension much more,” Twilight protested.

Professor Newman raised an eyebrow at him. “You are quite confident in this?”

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed smugly.

Professor Newman stepped aside and gestured to the area in front of the podium. “If that’s so, perhaps you would like to demonstrate to the class how I am incorrect. Stand in front of the podium and center the channeling matrix…hmm… let's go with a ponylength and a half in front of you and about a ponylength elevation—no, instead, make that two. Do not put much power into it. You are demonstrating the concept, not trying to do any more. Work slowly so everyone can see what you are doing. Hold one moment before you begin.” She turned towards Prim. “Miss Tape, please join me in the corner; I have something important for you to do.”

Prim seemed confused but left her seat and joined Professor Newman in the corner. Professor Newman bent down and whispered to Prim, giving her instructions the rest of us couldn’t hear. This continued for over a minute before Professor Newman stood up and walked away. Prim stood but didn’t return to her seat. Instead, she stepped to the side to get a better view of what was happening in front of the podium.

“You may come up and demonstrate now, Mister Glow,” Professor Newman instructed. “Remember, ensure the class can see what you are doing, including Miss Tape. Miss Tape must have a clear view.”

Twilight gave Prim an apprehensive look but did as instructed. This exercise was lost on me since, as an earth pony, I lacked the inherent ability to see runes being placed in a spell that was reserved for unicorns, kirins, Earthling crystal ponies, and, of course, alicorns. That didn’t mean an earth pony couldn’t place runes in a spell, but they had to know what they were placing where without actually seeing what they were doing. The channeling went through their body into the ground rather than using a specialized bodypart like a horn that could project runes anywhere within a certain range of the unicorn or kirin—crystal ponies were a whole other matter that I wasn’t sure of the full details. This was done instinctively with most earth ponies, just like unicorns could instinctively do a few simple spells without knowing what runes they were using—like their light spell and levitation, which were simple spells with few runes in their most basic forms. However, there were more advanced forms that required them to know what runes they were using.

Anyway, I had no idea what Twilight was doing beyond what had been explained to me, even if my classmates could see it. I could understand what was about to happen intellectually, but it was invisible. All I saw was his horn glowing with soft violet light.

Twilight must have been taking his time because this took much longer than most spellcasting, lasting well over a minute. He seemed very focused.

FLAAAMMMM!!!

I jumped back in my seat, as did most of the class. A fireball hung in the air, contained within a semi-translucent pink shield. Twilight had jumped back as well, and his horn had ceased glowing. However, Prim’s horn shone brightly with pink light as she gritted her teeth with concentration. The fireball extinguished after several seconds, probably having burned up all the oxygen within the shield. Prim then released the shield, looking like she was winded.

“Excellent work shielding that quickly before it could damage or burn anyone, Miss Tape. I knew you had it in you. Consider yourself a hero for today; that could have hurt someone,” Professor Newman complimented. “You may now return to your seat and relax.”

My initial impression was that Prim had been the cause of that, but I suppose that wasn’t the case. She still looked tired as she returned to her seat but was also smug. I hoped she wouldn’t spend time bragging about doing something she only did because the professor had instructed her to look out for it and act.

Professor Newman walked over to Twilight and looked down on him. “My apologies for letting you do that when I knew what would happen, but experience is the best teacher. Tell me, what went wrong?”

Twilight looked downward, ears sagged. “I didn’t listen to you and thought I knew better.”

She shook her head. “No, that isn’t what went wrong. There’s nothing wrong with testing new ways of doing something rather than accepting what you’ve been told. It is part of how we advance magic. I’d advise ensuring you have safety precautions in place whenever you do this since things like what we experienced can happen. No, I’m asking why your channeling spell matrix turned into a fiery blaze?”

Twilight looked up and seemed to think before looking down again. “I have no idea. I can’t think of why it would do that.”

“Then that is your homework, the entire class’s homework. You are all to draw out what Mister Glow did and come up with an answer on why that spell construction did that. Don’t let this discourage you from considering new ways of doing things, but make sure you consider all the implications of your idea first and ensure you have help to shield your matrixes.”

“Yes, professor,” Twilight replied. “How’d you know exactly what would happen?”

She smiled. “You forget, I was an aid to an earth mage who experimented extensively for years without knowing how things should work. There are benefits to working without knowledge of the rules; it means you are more likely to try a wide range of things while trying to determine how to do something. This also leads to watching any number of spells fizzle or literally blow up in your face. You aren’t the first to try that particular combination of runes in that formation. I’ve already seen it tried and the results. Don’t consider it a failure; it's just not the result you were after. Consider it learning a new way to make a blaze. Now, take the time to figure out why that happened so you can build on the experience. Class is dismissed.”

“Ah can’t believe the professor let Twilight do somethin’ dangerous like that,” Bright said as we walked to our next class.

“She seemed to be prepared for it,” Summer said.

“By putting Prim in charge of protecting us,” I said darkly. “Why did she put Prim in charge of that?”

“I hate to compliment her, but Prim is fairly good with shields in our combat magic class,” Hannah said. “She’s not great on offense, but her defense is the best in class. She can even keep back all of Lunar’s spells, and even Bright, Rocky, and Onyx can’t do that. They’re usually dodging instead of shielding after the second or third blast. Prim can hold him off indefinitely.”

Bright grimaced. “Yeah, Lunar’s a real monster when it comes to his attacks. Ah don’t know how she can hold him off.”

“We can only put so much power into our shields at our age, so they aren’t that strong. It just comes down to the fact that we have weak shields. Prim had personal training in shielding before she even came to school, so she has more experience. I heard her bragging about it,” Summer said.

“What about Red? Shouldn’t he have had that same personal training?” I asked.

Summer shrugged. “Maybe, but he doesn’t seem to have any talent for that stuff. Everypony in class can overpower him, and he can’t seem to overpower anypony. Some ponies are just better at some things than others.”

I flicked my ears. “Do you guys spend a lot of time fighting one another? That doesn’t seem like something we should be doing in school.”

“Professor Dawn believes in practical experience, which means facing off against live opponents. It’s about half instruction, half practice—or maybe it is about a third practice, half instruction, and the rest is demonstration,” Hannah explained. “Nopony is going to get hurt. She always stands close by, watching closing. She’ll throw a shield between us whenever there’s any chance one of us will get hit by something that could hurt us."

We turned a corner, and I stopped and stared at the hall. It wasn’t the normal hall, but instead a long metal corridor lined with identical statues of a unicorn mare placed every few yards from each other on both sides of the hall. All the windows were gone, and metal doors were between each group of two statues. Each statue had its hirn lit, giving light to the windowless corridor.

“What’s wrong, roomie?” Bright asked with concern.

I looked at him in disbelief. “What’s wrong? How can you ask that when the entire hall is different?”

“Different?” Hannah asked in confusion. “Different how? It looks the same to me.”

I looked back at the hall to point but paused as I was about to raise my hoof. The hall was back to normal with wood paneling, the standard doors, paintings, busts, and potted plants scattered along the sides. There was no sign of the corridor I had just seen.

“None of you saw a completely different hall a moment ago?” I asked, befuddled.

They all shook their heads.

“Eyes must be playin’ tricks in ya,” Bright said.

My eyes couldn’t have played that elaborate trick on me, and that was a very detailed thing to see. It had just been there. Why hadn’t they seen it? Was someone playing some sort of trick on me with illusion magic?

“Do you know any students that are good at illusion magic?” I asked. “Someone has to be trying to pull something with me. I’m sure I just saw another hallway.”

“Professor Inkwell’s illusion class isn’t until next year. So nobody has shown what they can do with it yet,” Hannah said. “What did you see?”

“A long metal corridor with statues of some unicorn mare that acted as lamps,” I explained.

“That sounds interestin’ an’ all, but why would somepony make ya see somethin’ like that? What would they get out of it?” Bright asked.

“Yeah, if they were going to try to scare you or something, they’d make an illusion of a monster or something,” Hannah said.

“Maybe they want Turnip to think he’s crazy?” Summer suggested.

“Sounds like something Prim might do just to mess with me,” I said darkly.

“But she’s never shown any illusion magic, and she doesn’t go around casting spells on other students. She could get in serious trouble for doing something like that, and she won’t risk that,” Summer protested.

“Unless she thought she could get away with it,” Bright counterpointed.

“Why wait until now to do something like that when she hasn’t done it all semester?” Summer asked back. “I don’t think she did it.”

“Well, we’re about to go to Inkwell’s class, and illusions are her thing. We can ask her who could have done it and how,” Hannah concluded.

That was true. I was already fairly confident that it was Prim pulling some trick on me. I just needed one of the professors to catch on to it.